


Blacks Don't Have Squibs

by RoverMaelstrom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 05:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10483185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoverMaelstrom/pseuds/RoverMaelstrom
Summary: The Black family doesn't have squibs. But the Black family also names all it's children after stars - and there's no star named Narcissa. A little oneshot about pureblood traditions, squibs, a mother's desperation, and how choices can have unexpected outcomes.





	

Druella Black nee Rosier was desperate. Her oldest daughters were perfect, luminous examples of Black witches – the accidental magic had shown early and often, with Bellatrix’s uncanny ability to shatter silencing charms with her shrieks and Andromeda’s penchant for setting fire to the curtains when upset, and they’d been presented to society before they could even toddle. Cygnus had been so proud, boasting about his children showing their heritage at such a young age, an implied testament to his magical virility. Not that the Black family ever had squibs, oh no, they simply didn’t present their children to the world until they were past the dangerous newborn stage, simply kept to the old tradition of keeping pregnancy and new babies private, that was all. And the fact that there was no quite set age for a child to be presented to society, well, that was swept aside with a wave of the hand. Some children are sickly and must be carefully nurtured, of course. It was the way of things. And if there were whispers that the Blacks never had squibs because those squibs never saw the outsides of their mother’s chambers, well...they were very quiet. It wouldn’t do to anger such a powerful family, after all, and really, over squibs that may or may not exist? Absurd. 

And that was the reason for Druella’s desperation. Though Bellatrix and Andromeda were perfect, proudly carrying the traditionally stellar Black names and growing up to be fine young ladies (Bellatrix would be starting at Hogwarts in a year and a half and was already impatient to own her own wand), all was not well in this particular Black household. Because, though publicly, Druella Black was the proud mother to two daughters, she carried in her heart the knowledge that she’d born five lives, not two.

She smiled serenely down from her chair at her middle daughter as the dark haired girl giggled with her younger sisters. The house elves had set up a small tea set and the five year old was hosting a tea party consisting of herself, her mother, three magically animated dolls, and her three year old twin sisters, who were much more preoccupied by the tiny cakes the house elves had baked than the rules of a society tea party. Druella wasn’t one to let an opportunity for polish go to waste – even though her little flower had yet to show any sign of being at all magical, Druella still gently corrected table manners and laid the groundwork that any good pureblood society lady must have. But even as she nibbled on biscuits and smiled at her daughters, she worried. After all, Petunia was already five, almost six – if she’d been going to show accidental magic, it should have come out by now. Blacks always manifested young. And she was old enough to be confused, if by some miracle she did spontaneously demonstrate that she was indeed magical, when Cygnus was introduced to her and her name was changed to a proper star name, in keeping with the Black traditions. So she smiled serenely, the mask any pureblood woman must cultivate firmly in place, and inside she fretted.

~*~*~*~

When Bellatrix’s Hogwarts letter finally came, and still her youngest daughters had shown no indication of magic, Druella knew she had to act. Petunia was almost seven years old, and the younger girls were four, and yet, the only magic within Druella’s chambers was her own and that of the house elves. Over the last year, Cygnus had begun making comments regarding her “pets”, dropping mentions of the common knowledge that once a family has one squib, it’s likely all the rest of the children will be as well – if there even are any more children. Druella took the comments in silence, but inside, her heart broke. She’d spent so much of the last years with her youngest girls that neither of her oldest were very close to her – they knew that there was something occupying their mother’s heart, but not what. Not that it mattered – Andromeda was in love with her books, with the far away places they could take her and the things they could teach her, and Bellatrix followed her father everywhere, absorbing his business dealings and political maneuverings like water to parched earth. Neither were close to Druella, not anymore. She’d put all her devotion onto the youngest, as if enough application of motherly love would make the magic spontaneously burst out of them, and it might have been all for naught. 

When that thought passed through her head, she clenched her fist. No! Druella Rosier never went down without a fight, and that didn’t change when she got married. She would have at least one daughter that was hers and hers alone, to spoil and pamper and turn into the perfect little princess she always wanted. And so she planned and plotted, reaching out through her social connections, researching through every library and tale she could get her hands on, searching for anything that would guarantee that at least one of her youngest would have magic.

~*~*~*~

Shortly before Beltane, Druella gave her three youngest daughters a touch of dreamless sleep at bedtime. The elves wrapped the twins up in a small, floating travel crib, and Druella carefully picked up Petunia, settling the sleeping child on her hip, as even though she was almost seven, she was still small and slight. With a pop, she vanished from her rooms and reappeared on the edge of a fen, deep in the heart of Wales. She shrugged Petunia up on her hip, gripped the basket with her youngest, and set off down a winding path towards a small cottage with a single dim lantern hanging in front of it. 

She reached the door and knocked, just as she’d done when she came the first time a month prior. The old witch who answered the door looked like a muggle’s nightmare, with crooked nose and warts showing out from under her pointy hat. She grinned at the put together witch on her doorstep, showing off her snaggle tooth, and made a gesture of welcome, bidding Druella to come in.

Druella complied, ushering the basket in before her and closing the door behind, and laid the sleeping body of Petunia on the table in front of the old witch. “I brought them, and they’ve all had a bit of dreamless sleep, so they won’t wake.” The old witch cut her off, then, waving a hand.

“You just let old Mags take a look here, and we’ll see if there’s a way to salvage these pretties, we will,” Mags left off, murmuring, as she waved her wand over the sleeping frame of the child in front of her, colors rising up and swirling as Mags added handfuls of herbs to a small fire and twisted her wand through it, building patterns in the air. At last she looked up, a pitying look on her face. “This one won’t ever be a wand-witch, I’m afraid...her magic’s too bound into her. She’s a true squib, and maybe her children will have magic and maybe her grandchildren will, but she’s not ever going to be able to reach out from herself and make her mark with magic, and there’s no ritual that’ll open her up without killing her.”

Druella choked back a sob, but she knew, even as her heart broke, that she’d been expecting that. Petunia was just too old, too old to have hope for. She gestured helplessly to the basket with her younger children and Mags tenderly floated Petunia’s limp form over to the couch and brought the basket up to the table to begin the charms and herb burning again. She paused suddenly, looking up at Druella. “You didn’t tell me your twins weren’t identical.”

Druella frowned, “I didn’t know that mattered. They’re practically identical, it’s just the hair that’s different...” again Mags cut her off.

“They’re four years old, woman – of course they look alike now! They won’t in ten years, not more than normal siblings will.” She trailed off again, muttering, and changed the cadence of her spellwork. Finally, she set her wand down and looked Druella square in the eye. “They’re not beyond help, these two, but it’ll come at a price.”

Druella practically fainted in relief. “What do you need? What do they need?”

Mags turned, rummaging through a cupboard, and finally pulled down a book. “They’re right on the cusp – they could close up like that older sister of theirs, locked tight down. Or they could open spontaneously, like you’ve been hoping they will. But as time goes on, it’s going to be less and less likely they’ll do that. But they’re not beyond help, not yet. At least, one isn’t.”

Druella drew in a sharp breath. “One? Not both?”

Mags shook her head, “This ritual, it’s old magic, from when ritual work was more common and times were more dangerous. It’s woman magic, tied from the blood of your womb to the fruit of it. It’s usually used when a child who’s already magical is hurt, hurt badly, and has lost their connection to their magic, but it can be used to open up a child suspected of being a squib, if you do it in time. You can only do it once, as you’re literally tying your own magic into that of your child’s, using your adult stability and strength to open that channel to your child and hold it open until they grow into it and hold it steady themselves. You’ll never be able to undo it, and when you die, all your magic will pour over to them. You’ll love them more than the rest of your children, be closer to them than your own husband. It’s not something to do lightly. And you’ll have to choose which one, because it’ll work for either, but not both – they’re not magically identical, they can’t share magic, and so they can’t share you.”

Druella almost sagged, but held herself up ramrod straight. She would do it. This was what she wanted, what needed to happen. She would not fail all her children. “What do I need to do?”

~*~*~*~

A fortnight later, she had her plan in place. She’d located a suitable home for her other two children, finding a young couple with no great attachments, who’d never been able to have children, and skillfully manipulating them into moving across the country, where nobody would know they didn’t have children. She’d used her own memories to anchor the memory charms she’d applied, and arranged via Gringotts to make a sizable deposit to their bank account and purchase a reasonable muggle house in a reasonable neighborhood. When she was done, they thought that her daughters were their own by blood, that they’d won the lottery and moved across country for a fresh start with their family in a real house instead of a cramped apartment in a grubby coal town. She manipulated her own daughters memories, replacing her face with those of their new parents, blurring all the recollections of magic into dreamlike, imaginary playtime...and layering the memories of the daughter she intended to keep with the idea that she was simply an imaginary friend, that she’d never been real. She cried only once, after the final steps had been completed and her daughters had been left in their bedrooms in their new parent’s home. She let all her heartbreak and anger and rage at the universe out until there was nothing left, and then she dried her eyes, freshened her face, and stood tall. She’d done right by her daughters, made sure they would not suffer any more than any muggle, and now she would forget them. She smiled down at the small girl asleep in her lonely crib and began altering her memories, fading all recollections of her lost twin into fuzzy, imaginary status. Her future was here.

~*~*~*~

When the announcement for the presentation of the Black’s youngest daughter came out, tongues definitely wagged. This daughter was much older than the other Black children had been, and the rumor regarding the Black’s tradition of keeping suspected squibs locked up only gained traction. But the majority of the gossip was centered on the unusual name of the child – a Black without a constellation name? Unheard of! But Cygnus merely answered questions with a long suffering sigh and a complaint about the irrationality of women. “Narcissa was quite a sickly baby, she was, and neither of us thought she’d survive infancy, and so when my wife wanted to give her a flower name, well, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to indulge her, seeing as how we didn’t expect her to live long. And when she finally recovered, and I started making noises about changing her name to something more suitable, well. In the end I just gave it up as a bad job, and learned my lesson – never give in at the beginning if you don’t want to deal with the consequences years later, because, I’m telling you boys, women never forget and they never let things go.”

And Druella watched, proud as could be, as her daughter threw a fit and accidentally changed the icing on the tasteful white cakes to a garish bright pink, much to her older sister’s disgust. Her princess was perfect, and all was right in the world.

~*~*~*~

A world away, Petunia Evans bounced downstairs to meet her mother in the kitchen. This house was so much better than the tiny apartment! They even had a backyard, so she could finally play outside! She hugged her mother and bounded out the back door, skip-rope in her hand. Life seemed to be so much sharper and in focus, outdoors, and as she played under the sun her memories of the small suite of rooms she’d grown up in faded into the cloudy recollections of childhood.

Upstairs, Lily Evans sobbed into her pillow. Her parents were worried – their youngest daughter, who’d always been so cheerful, had been almost inconsolable since the move but hadn’t been able to articulate why, only that something was missing. The doctor said it was stress, that some young children didn’t handle change well, and that it would calm down sooner or later. Lily knew the doctor was wrong, and, finally, after a week of temper tantrums, sobs, and meltdowns, she suddenly realized why. With an audible snap, her hair stood on end, sparking with something far stronger than static electricity. The memory charms broke, partially, and Lily knew, deeply and instinctively, that her parents were wrong. Cissa wasn’t an imaginary friend. Cissa was her twin sister, and someone took her away, and Lily was the only one who remembered that she was real. Her sobs finally petered out, as exhausted, little Lily Evans fell asleep. She’d have to grow up first, but she remembered, and, one day, she’d find out who stole her sister.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this absolutely came from another oneshot, where it's mentioned in passing that Petunia and Lily were both Blacks who were given away as squibs, but that the Blacks had guessed wrongly with Lily. The idea entered into my head and wouldn't leave until I handwrote the first draft out on notebook paper by lamplight when I should have been sleeping, and the result of this rabid plot bunny attack is what you've just (hopefully) enjoyed. ^.^


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